A Note from the Pastor – Our Homing Beacon

A Note from the Pastor – Our Homing Beacon

When the space shuttle Challenger exploded, everyone on
board was lost. But something traveling aboard did survive. Workers recovering
fragments of the ship found a duffel bag floating in the Atlantic. Inside was a
soccer ball that an astronaut had brought with him. Ellison Onizuka was an
assistant coach for his daughter’s soccer team. Given the chance to carry
something personal into space, he chose to take a soccer ball signed by
everyone on the team.

Ellison’s wife remembers being brought into a conference
room where she huddled with the other astronaut’s family members. Nasa
officials informed them there were no survivors. Ellison’s wife fainted. As she
slid down the wall she turned off the light switch and the room went dark…an
irony as everyone in the room’s personal light went out.

The Soccer ball was presented to his daughter’s school and
for 30 years it sat in a display case in the hallway, gradually fading from the
community’s collective memory.

In October of 2016 another astronaut, whose daughter also
attended this particular school, was given the chance to carry something
personal on his flight to the International Space Station. He asked permission
to take the soccer ball.

The ball spent 173 days in space, orbiting the earth 3,000
times before finally coming home. The ball had completed its original mission.
Now it sits prominently in the display case again.

When someone dies too young or too soon a deep dream is
deferred. This world doesn’t feel big enough and life never seems to last long
enough. Most would concur with this feeling. God has placed within us a homing
beacon, a reminder that our stories were made to straddle two worlds. We ache
for what was never completed in this life, a desire that can only be satisfied
in eternity.

This is one of the primary takeaways from Easter. When Jesus
died, the lights seemed to go out. But then a rumor began to spread: Jesus had
not been conquered by death. He had faced humanity’s greatest enemy and won.

Followers of Jesus live in the confidence that even when something seems incomplete or tragically cut short, it will one day be made right by the God who rules both this world and the next. We live in the expectation that life’s mysteries will be understood.